


Save

by Khashana, read by Khashana (Khashana)



Series: Disrespect!verse [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ADHD Aang, Alternate Universe - College/University, Aromantic Character, Aromantic Toph, Asexual Character, Blind Character, Canon Disabled Character, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Podfic, Podfic Length: 30-45 Minutes, Podfic and fic together, Zuko sometimes forgets his backstory is tragic, accessibility, gratuitous talking heads references, if you don't think modern day Toph would hit people with her cane I don't know what to tell you, there is no romance in this actually but there is some sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25534849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/Khashana, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/read%20by%20Khashana
Summary: If Toph doesn't want Zuko's loyalty for life, she should probably stop saving his friends.
Relationships: Toph Beifong & The Gaang, Toph Beifong & Zuko, Toph Beifong/Mai
Series: Disrespect!verse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782586
Comments: 123
Kudos: 517





	1. Aang

**Author's Note:**

> Congratulations, everyone, Disrespect is now the most popular thing I've ever written in both kudos and comment threads!  
> Shoutout to Lin, who gave advice, Raven, who had the idea for June, and Chuthulhu, who wanted more of Mai's backstory; I hope you liked what I did with her!  
> Everyone who was excited to see Toph, I hope she was worth the hype!
> 
> [Podfic](https://khashanakalashtar.wordpress.com/portfolio/save/)

“Windows logon dialogue,” says the computer. “Password that is protected. Blank.”

Toph types in the password and plugs her refreshable Braille display in. She tabs until NVDA says “Microsoft Word,” and opens a new document.

“Yo, Toph!” says a familiar voice.

“Hey, Sweetcheeks,” she answers. Kai doesn’t take the bait, just thumps down in the seat next to her and starts chattering to her about the homework.

“What did you get on the last quiz?” he asks finally.

“We haven’t gotten it back yet, dumbass.”

“I mean the one before that.”

“Don’t remember.”

“What do you mean you don’t remember?”

“Ninety-something,” says Toph.

“Good morning, everyone,” says Professor Yu from the front.

Toph presses Insert and Q at the same time. “NVDA off,” says the computer, and chimes. Toph takes notes as Professor Yu lectures until someone comes up beside her and rustles a piece of paper. She holds out her hand and receives it.

“Perfect hundred,” says Li, the TA, in an undertone. “Nice one, Toph.”

“Thanks,” she says, and stuffs the paper into her folder of papers she probably won’t ever need again.

“Wow,” whispers Kai appreciatively.

“You must be really good at this,” says whoever’s sitting closest to her other side. A guy, she thinks. Could go either way.

“I’m excellent,” she answers, and goes back to note taking.

“Why do they even give you the paper back if you can’t see it?”

“Beats me. Now shut up, I’m trying to listen.”

He shuts up, and Toph can concentrate on geology.

She’s forgotten about him by the end of class, but he hasn’t forgotten about her.

“Hey. Toph, right?” he says as she’s repacking her backpack. “I’m Aang. Would you want to study together sometime?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you did!” he says. “But _I_ sure do, and you obviously know what you’re doing.”

…No one has ever asked for her help with schoolwork before.

“What do I get out of it?”

“Uhhh. You’ll get to meet all my friends?” He sounds like he’s smiling, shot-in-the-dark hopeful.

“Pass.”

“Well…what do you want to get out of it?”

She considers. Maybe next time she needs a sighted person, it would rankle less if it was one paying back a debt instead of taking pity on the poor blind girl.

“Three study sessions for one unspecified favor I can cash in later.”

“Deal!” His voice is smiling again. “Saturday, in Denbigh common room? That’s where my friends and I study together.”

She’s never been to Denbigh.

“No. Come to my dorm’s common room. Pembroke. One o’clock.”

“Oh. Okay.” He sounds dejected, but she refuses to feel bad for him.

Saturday comes, and Toph makes her way to the common room at the appointed time.

“Aang?” she asks, but there’s no answer, so she goes to one of the couches, sits down, and plugs her earbuds into her phone before unlocking it. She double-taps the home button to bring up the open apps, and swipes sideways until it says, “Audible.” She selects it. She already has Pride and Prejudice queued up, having listened to a good chunk of it already, and she swipes until she finds the Play button and selects.

English is not a terrible class, if only because there are actual audiobooks of the texts instead of listening to her screenreader’s flat tone.

Aang doesn’t show up, but Toph has nowhere better to be, and she’s comfortable, so she stays put. Elizabeth is just turning down Mr. Collins when there’s the thud of feet and Aang’s breathless, “I’m here! I’m sorry!”

She feels her watch. It’s almost one-thirty. “You’re late.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He sits down beside her. She pauses her book.

“Whatever. You’re here now.”

Working with Aang isn’t at all what Toph expected. He has no trouble grasping the concepts at all. It’s more like he just wants to talk them out with her. She can hear the textbook pages turning. She’s starting to wonder if he was lying about needing the help when he admits that he’s been getting quiz scores in the fifties and sixties since the start of the semester.

“Why?” she asks, genuinely baffled.

Aang sighs.

“I need someone to keep me on track so I actually do the reading,” he admits. There’s something odd about his voice, like he’s dreading what she’s going to say.

“If you care about your grades, why don’t you just _do_ the reading?” She tries to keep her voice gentle, but he sighs, and when he speaks again he sounds miserable.

“I _can’t._ ”

Toph folds her arms. “Explain to me what I’m missing.”

There’s a thump and a shift in the air, like Aang has dropped his face into his hands. “I have ADHD,” he says. “The brain pathways for internal and external stimuli are different, okay? Internal is when I know I need to do something, like my homework, or eating, or going to bed. External is when somebody _else_ tells me to do something, or needs something from me. And in ADHD, the internal ones don’t work very well. So I outsource them.”

“You outsource them.”

“That’s what Zuko calls it. Having somebody else set me a deadline, or decide to run flashcards, or expect me to talk about something, works way way better than me doing it. It’s just how my brain’s wired, okay?”

He doesn’t sound like he expects her to get it, but she kind of does.

“Do you do it for all your subjects?”

“Uh, yeah.” The direction his voice is coming from changes subtly, like maybe he’s turned his face toward her. “Zuko’s doing French, Sokka’s doing film studies, Suki’s doing psych, and Katara _was_ doing geology, but it’s not working very well because she doesn’t know the subject and she kinda glazes over.”

It strikes a chord in her for reasons she doesn’t understand.

“And you all hang out on Saturdays to do it.”

“Yep! I mean, not just on Saturdays. I have more homework than that.” He laughs. “But we all do homework together then. We used to meet in Sokka’s room, but now we have Suki, he says it’s too small for that many people, so we use the common room.”

“Take me to meet them.”

“Really?” He sounds way too excited for such a simple thing.

“Yeah.”

Aang chatters away as they walk, but Toph mostly tunes him out and concentrates on where she is. He doesn’t try to help her, and she doesn’t ask, letting her cane find the curbs and using Aang’s voice to know where to turn. She adds the dorm to her mental map of campus fairly easily—she’s already been to buildings further down the road, she just didn’t know this one was Denbigh. The common room is just inside the door and to the right.

“Hi, guys!” chirps Aang. “This is Toph.”

A chorus of voices greet them.

“You’ve gotta introduce yourselves,” Aang tells them. “I can’t exactly point you out.” A ripple of laughter.

“Sokka, mechanical engineering major, sophomore,” says a confident, male voice directly across. “This is my girlfriend, Suki.”

“Hey,” says a higher voice near him. “Polisci, junior.”

“I’m Katara, I’m a frosh so I’m undeclared,” says another girl, closer and to the right.

“Zuko,” says a deep, raspy voice, and Toph startles. “Also polisci, sophomore.”

“Jesus, how old are you?” she asks him.

“Twenty?”

“ _Twenty?_ You could strike a match on that voice.” Scattered laughter. “Bet you light up everyone who’s into men within hearing distance.” More laughter. Zuko says nothing.

“He’s _so_ red,” giggles Aang. Then, “Sorry, is that weird? I don’t know if you know what colors look like.”

“I was born blind, so no. But it’s okay. I still make associations with them, and I obviously know what a person turning red means.”

They settle down at a table on the other side of the room so they can keep going over geology without disturbing anyone, and when they finish reviewing, Toph settles on the couch with Pride and Prejudice and Aang goes off to discuss film studies with Sokka.

“Do you all share classes with him?” she asks curiously. 

“Not this semester,” says Katara. “We took OCEAN 101 together last semester, but this time it’s just whoever’s got some background in the subject. Sokka had film studies last year, and Suki just likes psychology.”

“And Sparky speaks French.”

“Huh?” says Zuko.

“You.”

“Oh. Just in high school. Sokka and Katara speak as much as I do, which is like, a handful of vocabulary and basic grammar. But we all know basically how it’s supposed to sound, so it’s easy enough to run flashcards with him.”

“We live in Canada,” Katara explains. “Hard to travel much without picking up at least a little by osmosis. Zuko, what are you looking at?”

“Sorry. It’s just, do you know your eyes still move, like, all the time?”

Katara is mildly scandalized, but Toph goes with it.

“My retinas are detached,” she tells him gleefully. “Gross, right?” This has very little to do with the fact that her eye muscles still work, but Zuko doesn’t seem to care.

“Cool.”

Toph decides that Zuko is her new favorite person.

Aang comes over again on Monday, and again on Wednesday, and Toph’s starting to get a better handle on what he needs her to do, and making it work so it’s also useful for her. She finds she doesn’t have to listen to the textbook chapter if she reviews in enough detail with Aang, and if she’s missing some piece of information, she can make him look it up, which is so much faster than hunting for it herself in the audio.

“All right, class,” says Professor Yu. “Notebooks away.” There’s a collective sigh, because that means _quiz,_ and the rustle of people putting everything back into their backpacks. Toph just plugs her earbuds into her computer, turns NVDA back on, and opens her email. Kai reaches across her to hand the stack of quizzes to Aang. Moments later, an email from Li comes in with the quiz attached, and Toph opens it.

“Here we go,” says Aang, and takes a deep breath in and lets it out.

The quiz isn’t difficult, just time-consuming. She finishes, emails it back to Li, and sets up again to take notes for the actual class.

“I knew way more of the answers this time!” Aang whispers after he hands his paper back, and Toph feels a jolt of pride.

She turns up at Denbigh on Saturday, again, and this time, she goes to dinner with them.

They’re not an insignificant amount of time into the semester, and midterms are quickly approaching. Study sessions with the others get more intense, stress permeating the air. If anything, it gets _harder_ for Aang to focus, but they’re tag-teaming him pretty effectively. She’s noticed Zuko mostly just makes Aang run flashcards and Sokka and Suki mostly bug him about writing papers and occasionally give him feedback on his drafts, leaving them with most of their time available to do their own work. But it works out fine for Toph to discuss geology in depth, and it’s definitely more enjoyable doing the rest of her work with company. Zuko approaches her at lunch on a Thursday and asks to sit with her. He’s awkward as sin about it, but she doesn’t tease him, and they have a very enjoyable salt-fest over their professors.

Midterms are stressful, just like last semester, but they meet for dinner on a Friday night and all agree that they think all their exams went well.

“I wouldn’t be here without all of you,” says Aang with far too much sincerity. “So thank you. Especially Toph, who’s a lifesaver and spends way more time on geology with me than she needs to, and I owe her like a hundred favors.”

Toph stabs him with her cane, but not as hard as she could have. She should have made “and no having emotions about it” part of their deal. Sokka laughs at him when he yelps, but Zuko says “Seconded,” and Toph has to hit him too.

“So, who wants to go out and get _smashed?_ ” crows Toph as they stack up their dishes. A beat of silence. “What?”

“I can have a little, but I can’t get drunk, it’s contraindicated by my meds,” explains Katara.

“Intoxication is against my beliefs,” says Aang apologetically.

“I’m an _addict,_ ” says Zuko, like this is a normal thing to say. “I _know better._ ”

“What.”

“Oh.” He rustles uncomfortably. “You didn’t know?”

“ _No,_ I didn’t know, Sparky, what the _fuck?_ ”

“Not like, heroin,” Zuko rushes to assure her. “Self-harm.” And that isn’t reassuring _at all._

“Well, Suki and I would _love_ to get smashed with you,” says Sokka, rescuing everyone.

(They do, and it’s excellent.)


	2. Mai

It turns out Zuko’s in some play, and his uncle and his friend Mai come up to see it. Toph likes them both immediately.

Zuko introduces her, and the first thing out of Mai’s mouth is, “Well, you two must get along swimmingly. One eye between you.” Her voice is a vaguely snarky deadpan, but pleasant to listen to, and its location puts her at least four inches taller than Toph.

“Huh?” Toph frowns.

“Oh, uh…” Zuko shifts, making the floor creak. “I’m blind in one eye?”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Toph demands.

“Cause it’s not comparable! You compensate with hearing and touch and assistive devices that _rely_ on hearing and touch, except I don’t even know if that should be called compensating because you’ve never lived any other way! But me? I compensate by constantly reminding myself to walk a little further to the right than I think I need to, standing on people’s left, and being really careful when I drive!”

“You _drive_? Without _depth perception_?” Katara sounds horrified. Zuko fidgets audibly.

“Really, _really_ careful.”

“You must be really good at faking it if none of your friends noticed,” says Toph.

“Well, I figured your vision must be _bad_ in that eye,” says Katara, “but I didn’t know it was _gone._ ”

“Uh, yeah. I have a burn scar across that eye,” Zuko says, presumably for Toph’s benefit. “It was pretty much inevitable it was going to get infected. Uncle says I was lucky I didn’t go blind in both. But the skin around it’s pretty fucked up. No one’s going to stare long enough to realize the eye doesn’t track.”

“Sparky, you have _got_ to stop dropping this shit out of nowhere,” says Toph when her brain comes back online.

“What was I supposed to do? Describe my appearance when I met you? ‘Hi, I’m Zuko and I have a giant scar on my face!’ No!”

“Chill _out_ ,” says Toph, because he’s getting loud. “We’re good. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Zuko, suitably chastened. She whacks him in the shin with her cane and smirks when he yelps.

“What was that for?”

“That’s how I show affection!” she chirps.

Uncle is a sweet old guy who tells her it’s such a pleasure to meet her and that Zuko has talked about her. Toph thinks they could be friends, given the chance.

The play is enjoyable. She can follow a lot of it just by listening to the dialogue, and what she can’t is made up by Katara and Sokka, who are sitting on either side of her, whispering descriptions. Zuko has a fairly small part, but he seems decent, and Katara whispers “Here comes Zuko!” during curtain call so she can scream her cheering along with the rest of them.

Uncle goes to bed, but Mai comes to hang out with them after, strolling across Merion Green. Zuko is higher on life than she’s ever known him—talkative and excited, flitting around like Aang, a smile constantly audible. He darts over to Suki to describe something enthusiastically, and Toph ends up between Mai and Katara.

“So how do you know each other?” asks Katara.

“High school,” drawls Mai. “We were the oddball table, which I’m sure you can tell by looking.”

“Oh, absolutely,” says Toph, deadpan. Mai gives a soft snicker.

“Holy shit, you made Mai laugh out loud,” interjects Zuko, who wasn’t standing there a second ago. “I’ve managed that maybe once ever.”

“Tough customer, huh, Snowflake?” says Toph, internally preening.

“Snowflake?”

“It’s kind of her thing,” Zuko explains.

“We responded to our abuse in very different ways,” says Mai.

“ _Jesus fucking Christ, Sparky.”_

“That one wasn’t even my fault!”

“Did you not tell them?” It’s the first time Mai’s voice hasn’t been totally deadpan all night. “You used to be so open, I just assumed.”

“I mean, I told Aang, Sokka, and Katara last semester, but it hasn’t come up since Toph’s been hanging out with us. And I guess Suki might not know either.”

“Suki figured it out eventually,” says Suki. “You’re a ball of issues, no offense, bud.”

“I mean. It’s true.”

They reach the benches at the end of the green and sit down by mutual silent agreement. Toph sprawls out on the ground instead, and Mai folds herself down beside her.

“So what turns a person into an ice queen, Snowflake?” asks Toph, who generally operates on the principle of ‘if they brought it up first, it’s fair game.’

“I was a rich only child who got anything I wanted, as long as I behaved and sat still, and didn't speak unless spoken to. Otherwise I got grounded. I would have to come straight home from school and get locked in my room. No books, no phone, no computer.”

Toph feels as though she’s been glued to the grass, and possibly eaten a rock.

“My mother said I had to keep out of trouble. We had my dad's political career to think about.”

“I feel that,” says Toph, and her voice sounds strange.

“Really?” The tone is disbelieving, and it rankles.

“Yes, really,” she snaps. “I’m _blind_ , you think my parents ever once let me do anything for myself? Have any privacy? Interact with other kids without an adult there to make sure I didn’t trip?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, now that I’ve run away from home.” Her words snap to cover the hurt. “They don’t know where I am and they can’t do anything about it if they find me. I’m almost nineteen.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and then Mai says quietly, “I wish I were brave enough to do that.”

Toph’s anger fades as quickly as it came. She reaches out, encounters an arm, and squeezes gently.

“I bet Uncle would help you. He seems like a good guy.”

“He is, but he’s friends with my parents.”

Toph’s impression of Uncle is not that he would fail to help someone who asked just because he talked to their parents, but Mai has known him longer, so she shuts up.

“How did you do it?” Mai asks after a moment, so Toph tells her—all about being constantly in the presence of one caregiver or the next, with no privacy even on her computer, until June decided she didn’t care about losing her cushy salary if staying meant helping keep a then-sixteen-year-old locked up against her will.

“She asked me if I wanted to leave, and she told me she’d help me,” Toph remembers. “I had thought it all out already, I just didn’t think I could pull it off constantly being followed, and I was a little worried about traveling alone. So together we stole the key to the safety deposit box and got my birth certificate and medical records and stuff, and some of my grandma’s old jewelry that my mom only looks at once every ten years or so.”

“And you just left?” Mai shifts on the grass, bringing her closer. Toph’s hand slides off Mai’s arm onto her leg, but before she can retract it, Mai puts her own on top of it. She smells like flowers. Roses. Toph’s heart beats hard enough to feel in her chest.

“Yep. I spent about a week sneaking around in the middle of the night stashing clothes and shit in a bag, and then I snuck out of the house and she met me on the street, and we drove for two days. Because we knew my parents would report me missing to the police, and ‘little blind girl with white eyes’ is pretty distinctive.”

Toph feels a wave of gratitude for June, who had dropped her new job and apartment to, technically, kidnap her minor charge and spirit her across the country. _Should have known I wasn’t cut out for nannying,_ June had said. She’ll have to call home tomorrow.

“We pawned the jewels and my laptop with all the spyware first chance we got, and started over. And then I got a full ride here.”

“That’s the main reason I haven’t tried harder,” Mai says. “My parents are paying for my degree.”

“Are they letting you major in something you want, at least?” Toph moves her thumb, gently petting, just a little.

“No,” Mai admits. “I’d want to study art history, but I’m pre-law.”

“So why not transfer somewhere affordable?”

“I wouldn’t even be able to afford it with a full ride, not by myself. That never comes with, like, bed and board and textbooks, and I wouldn’t have time to work. And besides, what would I do with an art history degree?”

Toph has no answer for that.

“I should probably be getting back to my room,” she says instead, and stands up. Her heart is buzzing in her skin and her cheeks are warm. Mai stands, too, and doesn’t let go of her hand.

Toph isn’t a hugger, normally, but she opens her arms. If Mai knows she has ulterior motives, she says nothing, just leans in, and Toph wraps her arms around her, and oh _god_ yes. She’s definitely tall, leaning down into the hug, and rail-thin, and she smells even better up close. Toph runs her hands up and down Mai’s back, almost petting, and then, in an exhilarated moment of lost inhibition, she reaches up with one hand to stroke Mai’s hair, which turns out to be long and silky.

Mai inhales sharply. Toph tilts her face up, hoping, and Mai swoops down to peck her on the lips, fast, like she isn’t sure of her welcome.

“Again,” whispers Toph, and Mai kisses her properly. Her lips are soft, and Toph winds both hands into her luscious hair and kisses back. The others make surprised noises, and Sokka whistles, but Toph and Mai ignore them completely.

Her skin is on fire and she isn’t getting enough air, and she wants more. She’s aware of Mai’s hands on her back, clutching her close. They break apart.

“Come back to my room with me?”

“Yeah.” Her voice is almost hoarse.

Toph leads her by the hand back across the green and down to her dorm. She has to let go to key open the doors, and again to unlock her own room, but then she can let the loop on her cane slide down to her elbow and pull Mai back in with both hands. Mai presses her back against the door, inserting a knee between her legs, and Toph groans, rubbing against her and letting waves of pleasure shiver through her.

They break apart again so Toph can stow her cane in the corner and undress, quickly but methodically, stacking her things on the floor so she won’t have to ask Mai where they are afterwards. She lies back on the bed and Mai climbs on top of her, also now naked, as Toph finds when she runs her hands down bare skin.

“I’ve never been with another girl before,” Mai whispers.

“I haven’t been with anyone,” admits Toph. “It hasn’t been that long that I’ve even had an opportunity.”

“We’ll figure it out as we go, I guess.”

It doesn’t take long. Mai shows her how she likes to be touched, and Toph finishes with her hands on Mai’s breasts and their legs interlocked.

She doesn’t try to sleep over, and Toph doesn’t ask.

Toph calls home the next day.

“Hey, girl,” says June, picking up.

“What’s up, Bangles?”

“Not much. Work is blah. House is boring without you. Same as it ever was.”

“Same. As. It. Ever. Was,” Toph quotes back at her. “Speaking of which, I met a girl just like me yesterday.”

“Stubborn, crabby, allergic to feelings, but secretly a softie?”

“Shut the fuck up. No, I meant locked up by her parents, forced to shut up, and treated like a decoration.” Though now that she thinks about it, she has no reason to believe Mai _isn’t_ any of those other things, either.

“A kid?”

“No, a grownass sophomore in college.”

“Damn.” A beat, and then, “All right, give her my number.”

“Why would I do that?” snarks Toph, and it’s suddenly easier to breathe. “So you can offend her eyes with your horrible fashion sense?”

A sigh. “That doesn’t even make _sense,_ Toph.”

She texts Zuko after she gets off the phone.

_Give Mai this phone number and tell her it’s my friend_

“Message received. From Zuko. Why?” says her phone. She swipes to select voice message.

“She’ll know what to do with it.”

Zuko doesn’t respond to that. She thinks that’s all she’ll hear of it, but two days later, she meets up with the others for dinner, and Zuko stops in front of her and says, “Can I hug you?”

“Okay?” says Toph, because Zuko’s life has apparently been hell and he should get all the hugs he wants, but why does he want them from her?

He pulls her into his chest, and she hugs him back. “Mai wants out,” he says into her ear, not whispering, but not something anyone would accidentally overhear. “ _Thank you._ ”

A lump forms in Toph’s throat. She thinks about punching him, but hugs him harder instead. “I didn’t do anything. Just told her she had options.”

“Do you know how long I’ve been watching her just _take_ it?” says Zuko, letting go. “It was a win that she agreed to leave her phone with a friend and let Uncle drive her up. She barely trusted him not to tell her parents she’s up here with me. But now she and Uncle and your sister have a group chat on some app I’ve never heard of, so even if her mom wants to read her texts, she won’t see.”

Toph doesn’t correct him, because June might as well be her sister. Instead, she grabs his hand, because she’s feeling too many things.

“I don’t know what you said to her, but I think you might have saved her.”

Toph squeezes as tightly as she can, and Zuko squeezes back.

Liberating Mai takes longer than liberating Toph did. June tells her later that Mai’s parents watched her even more closely in some ways than Toph’s did, that Iroh was the closest thing they had to someone on the inside, that Mai needed to talk to the finance department and the admissions department without being noticed, and also find somewhere to live. The list goes on.

Mai texts her, one day.

“Messages, now,” says her phone, and rattles off a string of numbers. “This is Mai.”

Toph unlocks her phone and adds Mai to her contacts. She almost records a voice message in response, but thinks better of it and types out a text.

_Is it safe to send voice messages or should I stick to text_

Mai calls her instead.

“Hey,” says Toph.

“Hi,” says Mai. “I thought this might be easier.” She sounds unsure, not like herself.

“Mm,” says Toph. “What’s up?”

“June said I could come stay with you, later. If I needed someplace. I just wanted to make sure that was okay with you first.”

“Yeah, of course,” says Toph. “I’m gonna warn you up front, though. I know we had a _moment,_ back there, and then we had sex, but even if you come live with me and I see you every day for months, that’s all it’s ever gonna be. I don’t do girlfriends, or boyfriends. Or the whole dating thing.”

“I don’t think that’s us, either,” says Mai, thank god. “Just…it meant something, right?” Toph’s ready to protest, but Mai continues. “Not a romantic something, necessarily. But that night was… important to me.”

Oh. A _human connection_ something. What Mai wants to know is _was that an expression of intimacy at least, or was I just a warm body._

“Yeah,” says Toph softly. “It was important to me, too.”


	3. Katara

Toph learns her goddamn lesson and asks Katara for the goddamn lowdown on anything else Zuko might just have failed to goddamn mention.

Then she has to go away and process because really, _what the fuck._

“Oh, and I forgot,” says Katara the next time they’re together. “Things that the rest of us know about each other that you might not.”

Oh, boy. What now?

“I’m not a hundred percent sure I’m supposed to tell you this, but since literally all the rest of us were there—Zuko and Suki are besties because he’s gay and she’s bi.”

Toph had guessed about Zuko, and isn’t all that surprised about Suki. “Technically no, you shouldn’t out people unless they tell you that you can, but you’re probably safe in this one instance.”

“Because you’re, um. Something. Too,” says Katara. Toph cracks a grin.

“I sure am something!” she agrees.

“Lesbian? Or also bi?” guesses Katara.

“I don’t really worry about it. I guess I can be attracted to girls or boys. Probably other people, too.”

Katara pops up beside her at dinner a couple days later saying, “So Opal in my class has a pin with the bi pride flag on her backpack. Do you want me to introduce you?”

“Sugar Queen, you’re sweet, but you do not need to set me up with anyone. I don’t do that dating shit.”

“Oh,” says Katara, sounding lost. “…Can I ask why?”

Toph sighs. “I’m aromantic. You familiar with that?”

“No?”

Jesus. This has the potential to be excruciating. Toph sets down her fork and cracks her knuckles. “You heard of asexual?”

“Kind of? People who don’t want to be with anyone, right?”

“Not really. People who don’t want to _have sex_ with anyone.” There’s probably a more accurate way to say that, but Toph just keeps going. “They might still get crushes, want a relationship, et cetera. If you don’t get crushes or want to date anybody, you’re aro. You might still want sex.”

Katara is quiet. Toph heaves another sigh. “You like boys, right? Think they’re cute, make your heart go pitter-pat, daydream about flowers and proposals and weddings with them?”

“Right.”

“And you _don’t_ think that about girls.”

“Right.” Katara sounds more confident.

“Now a lesbian would think that kind of thing about girls. And not about boys. Still with me?”

“Yes.”

“Now Suki is bi, so she feels that about girls _and_ boys. So if straight girls and lesbians are both standard-issue quarters, Suki’s a two-headed coin.”

“I’m totally stealing that,” puts in Suki from Katara’s other side.

Toph ignores her in favor of Katara’s “Right.”

“I’m a two- _tailed_ coin. I don’t feel like that for boys—like a lesbian—or for girls—like you.”

“Okay, I follow all that,” says Katara. “But what’s sexual attraction if that’s not it?”

“Oh,” says Toph quietly as several things fall into place. Katara’s _ace._

Where does she even start?

“Sexual attraction is when you meet someone and you want to get that person in your bed and do the nasty,” she tries.

“Like in the movies,” adds Suki, who seems to be actually paying attention.

“That’s—that’s _real_? People just look at someone and go ‘oh, I have to have you right now’? No way. It’s super exaggerated in movies.” Katara pauses. “Right?”

“Well, most people have more self-control than in the movies,” says Suki. “I don’t think doctors on shift are really sneaking off together to empty closets all the time like in Grey’s Anatomy. But attraction itself, yeah, it’s immediate like that.”

“Can we not have this conversation in front of my brother?” begs Katara. “Or with my brother’s girlfriend? No offense, Suki, but I need to pretend all you want from Sokka is to hang out and swap silat tips for my own sanity.”

Suki laughs. “None taken. You got this, Toph?” Toph runs down the roster in her head and realizes it really is up to her—their other friends include Katara’s brother, the guy who has a crush on her, and Zuko, who Toph seriously doubts has the finesse for this. (Not that Toph’s middle name is finesse. But at least she knows basically how to handle it, and _somebody_ needs to save Katara from allonormativity.)

“I guess. Come over to my place, Sugar Queen. Blindness perks mean I got a single.”

After dinner, Katara follows Toph back to her room, air thick with a silence too awkward even for Toph to pierce.

“All right,” says Toph, stretching out on her bed and summoning every ounce of shamelessness she possesses. “Let me tell you about what it was like with Mai.”

“Um,” says Katara.

“Not the sex part. The how we got there part.” And she does—how the sound of Mai’s voice, the smell of her perfume, the feel of her body drew her in, what that desire felt like in her body and in her mind, and Katara is quiet through it all.

Toph wishes she knew what Katara was thinking.

“And you’ve never experienced that, have you, Sugar Queen?” she says quietly.

“I mean,” says Katara in a small voice. “I want sex. I know what that feels like. I just…don’t think I’ve ever been drawn to someone like that.”

“So you have a sex drive,” says Toph. “That’s a thing. It’s different from being sexually attracted to someone.”

Katara makes a faintly confused noise.

“Some people say it’s like being hungry, but you’re not in the mood for anything in the fridge. Or anything at all.”

“That fits,” says Katara, small and lost, and Toph, cursing her luck, wraps an arm around her. Why is she in charge of comfort? She sucks at comfort. “What does that mean?”

“Only you can say for sure what you are. But if I had to guess, I’d say you’re asexual.”

Katara gives a small, hiccupping gasp.

“You know that’s okay, right, Sugar Queen? There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken or any of that shit.”

Silence.

“ _Katara_.”

“Yeah, I think I do.” She sounds calmer, and Toph breathes a small sigh of relief. “I’m okay. It’s just a lot, you know?”

“Yeah,” says Toph, not unkindly. “That’s a thing.”

“I’m okay,” Katara repeats, and scoots to sit against the wall. Toph’s arm falls away. “Can I just sit here for a little while? Read? While I figure out how upside down everything is?”

“Sure,” says Toph, who thinks maybe _Whatever you want, Sugar Queen_ won’t have the intended effect here.

They sit in silence for a while. Toph does homework, and Katara sits in the corner and doesn’t make very much noise.

_How’s Katara?_ Suki writes. Toph has her earbuds in, which means Katara doesn’t hear this.

_She’s okay I think_ Toph writes back. _She’s figuring shit out._

“I have an announcement,” says Katara at dinner the next day. The others quiet down. “I recently realized that I’m asexual.”

“Congratulations!” says Suki. “Thank you for telling us.”

There’s the squeak of a chair leg and a rustle, followed by “ _Sokka!_ I don’t have a hairbrush! _Boys,_ ” and Toph grins.

Zuko doesn’t say anything, but as they’re gathering their plates later, Toph hears a quiet, “Hey. Uh. Welcome to the club.”

“Yeah?” says Katara shyly. “It counts?”

“Of course it counts. Gay, bi, trans, ace—”

“Aro,” Toph adds.

“Aro. It all counts.”

“You know,” says Zuko, one Thursday while they’re chilling over lunch, apropos of absolutely nothing, “I’m a black belt in karate, I take silat, and I’m pretty good at dao swords.”

“Okay?” says Toph. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was flirting with her very badly, but she does know better. Maybe she’s fallen into an alternate universe. Or Zuko’s been brainwashed by government agents.

“But if my dad showed up tomorrow and demanded I go home with him, I’d probably freeze. And then have a panic attack.”

Puzzle pieces slot into place and Toph thinks she knows where this is going now.

“So I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have no doubt that you can take care of yourself. But if your parents ever did find you, I’d kick their ass for you.”

Zuko’s voice has lost its faint edge of _am I doing this interaction right_ and just sounds steely and determined. Like _I’m about to end this man’s whole career,_ thinks Toph, and stifles a giggle in case Zuko takes it the wrong way. And then Zuko keeps talking, and the urge to laugh melts.

“Cause it’s harder when it’s your family. Even when you know they’re wrong.”

“Thanks, Zuko,” says Toph quietly, knocking their feet together and hoping he can tell she’s touched. And then, “I’ve never seen you use swords.”

“No? Obviously not?”

Toph busts out laughing. “Sparky, I think you’re the second person I’ve ever met who hasn’t fallen for that at least the first time. Last month I told Twinkletoes I’d never seen him concentrate on something for so long, and he was like, ‘Really? I thought last week I— _wait a second_ ,’” she mimics.

Zuko starts chuckling, and Toph collapses all over again, laughing harder than she ever does when she actually gets someone with a blind joke, and part of it’s humor, but part of it’s gratitude, and part of it’s love.

**Author's Note:**

> RE: the running joke of Zuko accidentally dropping heavy shit on Toph: *I* think I'm hilarious. However, it may be funnier all together [like so.](https://khashanakalashtar.tumblr.com/post/625093120230670336/i-think-im-hilarious)  
> Exclusionists can fuck right off. Yes I'm willing to die on this hill.  
> If I have anything wrong with the blind rep, please let me know! Standing invitation to let me know about SPAG errors still stands.  
> Insert usual invitation to [follow me and this verse on tumblr.](https://khashanakalashtar.tumblr.com/tagged/disrespect-verse)  
> Edited to add: It occurred to me I should specify that bisexuality is not limited to two genders. It's just when you're explaining a concept like asexuality for the first time and the person isn't really getting it, you don't go adding in extra factors like nonbinary genders right away! There's time for that later. Source: I'm agender and I've explained asexuality to my sister.


End file.
